Michael Burgan

As a freelancer, Michael Burgan has written more than 300 nonfiction books for children and teens, as well as some fiction and adaptations of classic novels. As a playwright, he has had short works produced across the country. Burgan is a former network playwright with the Chicago Dramatists, a current member of the Dramatists Guild, and a founding member of High Desert Playwrights, a collective of Santa Fe-based dramatists.

Contact: mburgan01@gmail.com

Joey Chavez

Born and raised in Santa Fe Joey graduated from SFHS in 1975. He graduated from UNM with a BFA in theater in 1980 and then from OU with an MFA in theater performance.  Joey then complicated a 2 professional internship from the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, GA where he worked professionally earning his SAG and AEA cards before moving to NYC.  Joey later moved back to Santa Fe with his wife Robin and little Joey. He ran the theater department at SFHS for 15 years before accepting the theater department chairmanship at NMSA 2010. He is a published playwright and has more than 30 plays to his credit. Venues and companies include, The Public Theater, Circle Rep, Lincoln Center, Circle in the Square, The Alliance Theatre, ART Station, Detroit Center for the Arts, Mission Cultural Center, Horizon Theatre, Oklahoma Theater Center, The Lensic, Santa Fe Playhouse and Teatro Paraguay’s to name a few.

Joey’s storied career in theatre represents 40 years of work where he has focused on writing roles for young actors.  

Bronwen Denton-Davis

Bronwen is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director whose award-winning works
have premiered in Santa Fe and traveled to Los Angeles, New York, and London.

Bronwen served as co-founder and Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Theatre Company, which was founded to encourage new plays by focusing exclusively on original works. She served as the Director of the Playwrights Lab that assisted new plays to production locally and nationally. Bronwen was the co-creator of the original Benchwarmers at the Santa Fe Playhouse to which she contributed three plays, Waiting for Gaia, Waiting for William, and Angels in Waiting. She has premiered two critically acclaimed one-woman shows in Santa Fe, and premiered and directed her play String of Pearls at the Santa Fe Playhouse.

Three of Bronwen’s plays were showcased in a single season at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her mystical The Book of Wren premiered in Santa Fe with Theaterwork, directed by David Olson, and went on to be produced and directed by Valentina Fratti at The Miranda Theatre Company in NYC where it won a best new play nod from Backstage. Peeling Figs was nominated for an New York Innovative Theater Award. Other works have been presented in Brit Bits, NYC, and the So and So Arts Club in London. Invited to write for film, Bronwen shifted to creating scripts for Sandra Bullock, Gabriel Byrne, Simon Wincer, Bethany Rooney, and Montezuma Esparza.

Bronwen is a graduate of the University of California and holds an RSC Master Class Certificate.

Contact: ollieduff707@gmail.com

Leslie Dillen

Leslie is an award-winning actor, solo performer and playwright. She’s performed in theatre, television and film, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston. Leslie’s full-length, ten-minute plays, and solo plays have had productions around the US and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and New York Fringe Festival. In Santa Fe she acted in productions of her solo play “The Passions of Mabel Dodge Luhan” and her full-length play “Two Wives in India”. Her newest play “Avalanche” was produced by Just Say It Theater in 2021. Leslie has performed with various companies in Santa Fe, and most recently with New Mexico Actors Lab in “Doll’s House Part 2”, “Other Desert Cities”, and “The Children”.

Leslie trained with Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse, at The American Conservatory Theater under William Ball, and received her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Boston University. Leslie is a member of Dramatist Guild.

Contact: leslie.dillen@comcast.net

Jodi Drinkwater

Jodi Drinkwater Theatre Santa Fe Playwright BioJodi Drinkwater is a poet, painter, playwright, and filmmaker. She has had her short plays performed in a variety of venues in Santa Fe, including Santa Fe Playhouse, Teatro Paraguas, and Warehouse 21, among others, in association with Julesworks Follies and Benchwarmers. In 2009, she won the Athena Award: Runner Up for New Mexico Women in Film’s “Excellence in Screenwriting” contest. Most recently, her plays were included in Famous Female Voices festival and PlayReading for Playwrights. She has degrees in Literature, Creative Writing, Film Studies—Screenwriting, and Gallery Management. She has won awards for her short fiction and poetry. She is co-creator and co-star of the long-running web series, The Land of Tranquil Light on YouTube, which takes a surreal look at the lives of two artists trying to make it big in Santa Fe. She is the primary owner of Vanillagavé Productions.

Contact: https://youtube.com/@thelandoftranquillight?si=4, dreamsofwater@yahoo.com

Dale Dunn

Dale Dunn is a playwright, dramaturg, producer and co-artistic director of Just Say It Theater here in Santa Fe. Her latest play, A Subtle Kind of Murder, was presented by New Mexico Actors Lab and directed by Lynn Goodwin in June, 2025. Dale’s other plays include The Big Heartless, a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (produced by Relative Theatrics in Laramie, Wyoming, and by Just Say It Theater in Santa Fe);  Sworn to Water (Theaterwork/JSIT ), Body Burden (Adobe Theater/Santa Fe Performing Arts), Driving While Innocent (First Stage Los Angeles),  Parakeet Love (Fusion Theater’s The Seven/Women’s Voices),  Armed and Dangerous (Finalist, The Actor’s Theater of Louisville’s Heideman Award) and Gun Play (The Seven/Samuel French OOB Festival, New York/Festival Tout’tout Court, Montreal). Dale’s work as a dramaturg includes Ironweed Productions’ Our Town, Buried Child, Good People, Death of a Salesman, and Aliens.  Dale received her MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Contact: dalewdunn@gmail.com.

Sara Gmitter

Sara Gmitter is a professional writer and company member with Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago (2011 Tony Award winner for Regional Theatre). She has written or devised pieces for the Lookingglass Young Ensemble as well as Creativity for Peace here in Santa Fe.  Her play In the Garden: a Darwinian love story (Jeff Award nominated for Best New Work) has been produced at Lookingglass Theatre and at The Malvern Theatre in Melbourne, Australia. Other playwriting credits include Villette (Lookingglass Theatre Company); and A Long Fatal Love Chase (Powerhouse Theatre Company) adapted from the novel by Louisa May Alcott. She earned a BA in Theatre from the College of William and Mary and an MA in Peace Education from the UN mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. 

Contact: sgmitter@gmail.com.

Art Fox

I have been a professional actor and writer in Chicago for over 40 years. I've taught writing at DePaul University in Chicago since 2003. Two of my 10 minute plays have won first and second place awards from Chicago Writer's Bloc.

I have a full length play set in NM and featuring 3 LatinX actors I'd like to get produced in SF or Albuquerque.

Contact: artffox@gmail.com

Suzanne Lederer

Constance: The Art of Being Mrs. Oscar Wilde, is an original play about the married life of Constance Lloyd Holland and her husband, English playwright and author, Oscar Wilde.
Two of Suzanne’s plays, Platform, a bilingual piece in English and American Sign Language, and Ebb & Flo, about a brother and sister vaudeville team, were produced as part of the Benchwarmers Short Play Festival. Platform has been archived in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Suzanne adapted William Shakespeare’s As You Like It for Red Thread, as well as The Tempest for Shakespeare in Santa Fe. 

Suzanne is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association since 1971 and The Dramatists Guild of America since 2014.

Contact: Western1853@earthlink.net

Aaron Leventman

Aaron Leventman attended Columbia University’s Graduate School for film where his thesis screenplay was given a professional reading at the Union Square Theatre in Manhattan.  Aaron has enjoyed over 40 productions of his plays all over the country, many of which are published and available on Amazon.com. He co-produced an evening of his own short works titled Almost Adults met with tremendous acclaim.  His play Blanche in a Wheelchair was a finalist for the Samuel French OOB One Act Play Festival. He was the producer of a monthly online LGBTQ+ short play series which brought together talent and audiences from all over the world and was invited to participate in the South by Southwest Virtual Festival in 2021.  Aaron is also a playwriting, screenwriting, acting, and film history instructor at Santa Fe Community College. 

Contact: writingcoachsf@gmail.com. https://aaronleventman.com/

Holly Lovejoy

Forever a Yinzer daughter, Holly currently calls the high desert of New Mexico home with her family and dogs. She is an emerging dramatic wordsmith, focused on the topic of eroticism; an intimacy coach; and a newly minted intimacy professional for stage and screen. She graduated in 2020 with her MFA in Writing from Spalding University, with focuses in dramatic writing and creative non-fiction. Her focuses for theater are playwriting, directing, intimacy direction, and producing. Drawing on personal history and experience, Holly writes unabashedly about feminism, queerness, women, sex, parenting, trauma, abuse, body image and relationships. Her newest forays are stand-up comedy and visual art.

Contact:
hollywoodnm1@gmail.com
505-795-6404
www.hollylovejoy.com

Vicki Meagher

Vicki Meagher is a playwright and novelist living in Albuquerque. She’s written twelve full-length plays and has had many short plays produced in several states. Her full-length drama Cat’s Pajamas was produced by Teatro Paraguas in 2023. In New Mexico, her short plays have been produced or read at the Santa Fe Playhouse, Aux Dog Theatre, Fusion Theatre, KUNM Radio Theater, Los Alamos Little Theatre, Blue Raven Theatre, North Fourth Art Center, Coal Avenue Theater CNM, Albuquerque Oasis, and Taos Onstage. Her novel Mother Yucca will be published in 2026. She’s currently working on her novel Camp Wonder. She’s a co-facilitator of the Playwrights Circle (Albuquerque) and a member of the Albuquerque Theatre Guild, Dramatists Guild, Southwest Writers (Albuquerque), Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, New Hampshire Writers Project, Playwrights’ Platform (Boston), and International Centre for Women Playwrights.

Contact: vickimeagherwriter@gmail.com 

Riley Samuel Merritt

Riley is a trained actor out of New Mexico State University, graduating class of 2022. Since graduation, Riley has been honored to participate in many of Santa Fe's wonderful theatre companies, including the Santa Fe Playhouse, Tri-M productions, Teatro Paraguas and Family Theatre of Santa Fe.

More information: http://rileysamuelmerritt.com

Contact: rileysmerritt@gmail.com

R L Mirabal

R. L. Mirabal retired in 2023 after 33 years as the Theatre Arts Director at Lake Braddock Secondary in Burke, VA. A native of the Bronx, New York, R. L. received his BA in Drama and Speech from the Catholic University of America in D. C. R. L. has acted and directed over 200 mainstage and one-act high school, community and professional productions. Under his direction, The Lake Braddock Theatre has obtained honors and local and state awards and was invited to perform at the American High School Theatre Festival at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. R. L. directed for the Playworks new scripts program with the International Thespian Society since the program’s inception, and taught creative writing and Shakespeare at the Fairfax County Summer Institute for the Arts. The John F. Kennedy Center, Folger Shakespeare Theatre and The Washington Stage Guild are among the local DC institutions where R. L. has staged productions or acted.

Talia Pura

A member of the Dramatists Guild, Talia has enjoyed success as a playwright in both publications and productions. A Friend for Life is included in the Playwrights Press of Canada’s latest anthology of short plays. She is also in collections with Heinemann and the University of Michigan Press. Twice her plays have been chosen for presentation at the Women Playwrights International Conference. She recently completed a commission for The UnSlut Project, creating a play based on Emily Lindin’s UnSlut: a memoir. Her play, 10 O’clock was included in The Santa Fe Playhouse Benchwarmer Festival. In 2010, Talia was selected as a Canadian Forces war artist and conducted research in Afghanistan, resulting in several plays and screenplays. Ten of her short screenplays have been produced, as well as more than twenty of her plays. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Manitoba (Canada).

Contact: talia@taliapura.com or 505.428.8508

Mara Raden

Mara Raden is a pen for hire, with over twenty years of experience working in publishing, journalism, theatre, television and film. She has extensive experience in writing and editing nonfiction, fiction, science fiction and journalism for print as well as media. Mara specializes in consulting and mentoring writers in narrative storytelling, character development, comedy and dialogue. She can be found presently; writing, teaching, and developing projects in literature, media and for the stage in Santa Fe, NM and with Pipeline Media Group in Los Angeles, CA. Her approach to writing and development is deeply collaborative.

For consulting, editing, writing or evaluation services: mararaden@yahoo.com

KENNETH ROBBINS

Kenneth Robbins, Professor Emeritus Theatre, Louisiana Tech University, is a working playwright, author of over 50 published plays, winner of the SETC New Play Award, the Festival of Southern Theatre New Play Award, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Program Award, and others; produced in Tokyo, London, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and New York. He is also a published poet and award-winning novelist.

More information: https://proplay.ws/audition/

Contact: krobbins@latech.edu

Rosemary Zibart

Rosemary has worked as a journalist, playwright, and children’s book author. Her award-winning plays for young people include Never Ever Land and My Dear Doctor. A comic one-act, Babe, Inc., was presented in New York and London. Her play about philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, All Too Human, was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Eugene O’Neill National Playwriting Conference and was produced in Santa Fe in 2016. The Jewel in the Manuscript about Fyodor Dostoevesky was one of two winners of the Icicle Theater Festival and had readings in Seattle and New York. It premiered at the Adobe Theatre in Albuquerque in 2012 and was subsequently produced in Santa Fe at Warehouse 21 Theater.